


Kaleidoscope of Touch

by sigurfox



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Guilt, M/M, Magma, Mairon's random memories, Nature, Nightmares, No Plot, Recurring thoughts, Remorse, geysers, not graphic, prose, some spiritual lovemaking, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 12:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigurfox/pseuds/sigurfox
Summary: He is getting lost in memories. Ventures far back into the past, to the dawn of times…





	Kaleidoscope of Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Here please have yet another depressing frankenstein monster of a text which i produced out of sadness because my poetry muse keeps torturing me.
> 
> Warning: the text is nonsequential and English is not my native language.

Is this madness? He keeps having nightmares at night and replaying the events of the War of Wrath at daytime. Thinking he could do something. One day he failed, and that horrible error resulted in a bitter parting, fatal, eternal. No doubt he could have prevented it somehow, _should_ have prevented it.

If only this, if only that – Mairon knows it’s a waste of time but he can’t stop the spinning circle of nagging thoughts, no matter how much work he submerges into. There is no escape. The never-ending torrent of guilt doesn’t stop tormenting him. Useless plans and late ideas constantly hover in the background of whatever task his mind is busy with. Shame and anger sit firmly inside, he should have done better, _should do better now._

Further on there must be no more mistakes. 

He is getting lost in memories. Ventures far back into the past, to the dawn of times…

***

Melkor descended onto Mairon like an avalanche. He was too close and He was changing: His face turned into an olden landscape – skin changed from pale ashen to dark basalt, then to bright rust; irises filled with pitch-black ink. Thus His eyes resembled pools of liquid opals glimmering with all the colors, deep as the void.

The reality around trembled and shifted, as it always did when a being so powerful slid into another plane of existence. Mairon was sure that such a mighty creature as Melkor, changing hypostasis so abruptly and with such pompousness, could easily rip the fabric of the world if He only cared to.

His look became eerie, monstrous, absurd. He opened his mouth, bared the sword-like teeth, long curved fangs. Their whiteness filled with ink too and turned black. They grew. Long bright crimson tongue rolled out and then turned into a river of lava.

Lava ran from the opening cracks in His skin, earth-oil poured down from His eyes. He was turning His fana inside out and Mairon watched, awestruck and cringing on the inside.

Melkor crumbled down, rearranged pieces of himself, stitched Himself back up. Finally shifted into a little less horrendous form, slipped in it like a lesser being clothing itself in a dress to hide a disgrace which never existed for Melkor. He didn’t give a damn about the farce of His ludicrous shape-shifting, and He laughed an unearthly laughter with poisonous mirth in His narrowed eyes fixed on Mairon.

They were deep underground in a large cavern where magma openly circulated, heating up Arda’s body, and crept up the arteries of mountains, aching to escape.

In order to swim in thick unyielding magma or lava one must cast a fana away and go there in pure spirit, in its primeval form. So Master hit Mairon and this blow knocked the soul out of Mairon’s fana and he flew on the boulders, discorporate. Master laughed at his misery, clearly feeling ecstatically cheerful. He could weave a new body for His servant later with all but a flick of His noble power, just as easily as He dissolved the old one. Not a big deal. 

Master dragged Mairon to a pool and pushed him over the edge. Shoved him inside the pertinacious hot liquid and laughed again while holding him down. Mairon’s spirit hissed and thrashed until it let the essence of magma in him, until he accepted it, inhaled it, and then Master joined him inside the slow currents of Arda’s ichor.

Back then each experience was new and full of wondrous discoveries and profound feelings. Mairon penetrated the essence of angry spewing river, and Master’s power penetrated the essence of him. Mairon was confused but excited, the vicious blow forgotten – he quickly learned not to dwell on the harsh methods of teaching that Master preferred.

In everything they did then Mairon was mimicking Melkor’s motions whenever he was allowed, followed His lead and reveled in the sensation of the Vala’s soul engulfing his own. Melkor let him into His mind, let him see the vastness, unconquerable persistence, infinite potential. They became one together and with the world. White thick heat of the molten rock around snugly enveloped them both. Liquid gold, such is the blood of earth – the blood Melkor filled her with, the desire to shift, to evolve. The hot life He provided for her.

It was the usual order of things between them. Especially later when there were many more matters to unwrap: each time Melkor showed him new heights through downfall and ruin.

Whenever Master saw him with neatly done hair, braided and decorated with nature-themed ornaments, he immediately wanted to ravish him and leave him in mess. Not because He despised beauty, not at all. Quite on the contrary, He loved it and did so because any beauty was ever so fragile, delicate, _so brief_. Balancing on the narrow peak of harmony, craving to be undone. And undoing He did.

Master loved grabbing him by the hair to mess up smartly laid plaits, to pull strands out and to entangle them. To scatter around the trinkets that Mairon adored. Leaves and petals would burn and hiss and dry up on the hot floor. All those flowers and intricately curved branches woven in his hair. Or would be crumbled by a touch of frost. Master knew that on ice Mairon’s distress was especially excruciating.

He liked to break clasps, rip the silks on him, tear threads of jewels from his neck, sending them flying around. Unwanted gleaming tears of the substances He himself created.

He loved undoing Mairon layer by layer – first the attire, then the fana, making it ache and bleed and bruise, and then the ëala. He rummaged inside him in whatever way was pleasing for Him, rearranged it however an instantaneous whim bade him. He liked watching the creature of order writhe in discomfort, trying to get the pieces back together. And He liked to watch the creature of order restoring it afterwards. Building anew the beauty for Him to defile.

Mairon almost forgot he could never refuse Him. It was so long ago… Did it all really happen?

Back in the mountains, as they emerged from their magmatic bliss onto the surface in the cool air, Mairon couldn’t help but stare. Eyes, deep grey color as a breath of a volcano. Hair, the pitch-black sea of silk. Unraveling web of shadow, His halo. Blue petals lay withered on the ground... Let all be withered! His embrace, one of a winter blizzard. An offering of false safety, a warm sleep leading to freezing death. Yet this was the only home he ever had, the only home he ever wanted...

***

Mairon dreams. Of inclined diminished earth, the remnants of his King’s lands lying in ruin. It will never stitch itself up again.

Ashes circulate in the air falling from the indistinguishable heights in unhurried spirals. The view’s serenity and gentleness are mocking – the torn firmament’s last grace. This tranquility is deceitful, for the image is not peaceful at all. Splotches of frayed grey light soothe the contrast between the sharp pitch-black sand and grime, snow-covered rocks, earth red with umaiarin blood. Weapons, bodies, damaged defeated souls. Dark spells hang loose like tatters. Shreds of the lost battle.

In their violence, however righteous, the Powers of the West distort their own Great Symphony. Torn into fragments it forfeits its essence. But the Discord prevail. Yet it’s a small consolation.

It’s the end of an era. Wandering through the ruins Mairon wants to express his love as if he still has an unused case of it in his hands. But there is no response to his call.

He spots his master’s fana. Mairon hurries to Him, and drained of all strength he falls on his knees beside it, exhausted, overwhelmed. He runs his fingertips in a tender, feather-like touch across the dear face, as a blind would do to learn the features of a lover.

This is not Him. It can’t be Him.

No more than an empty vessel, tarnished fissured marble. Cool, harsh parchment to the touch, this matter’s too fragile, it holds inside nothing but a memory of a former dweller. Stroking his master’s skin, Mairon wants to smooth out every scar and every crinkle. As if by mere corporal contact he can reach out and ignite the spark in his master’s ëala wherever it is now. Whenever… Mairon looks around.

More than anything he wishes to sew back into entirety the pieces of Melkor’s shattered soul, to lick into non-existence his wounds, to seal them seamless – like cracks in stone or in metal he once could mend the best way – to return the ethereal perfection to a being that once was splendid... Oh, he’d use up all his skill if only it was possible.

But it’s empty and bare, this fana, empty, hollow beyond evaluation, and truly he is blind not to see it…

With a nauseating rush of consciousness Mairon surfaces back up into reality.

It’s a jolt, a nasty pressure in the temples – Mairon jerks with a gasp. He sits up, dark coverlets pool around his waist. The dream’s scene quickly fades, it slips away, sliding into the void at a great speed. But he chases it, like a riddle’s answer, simultaneously wishing and dreading to grasp it. But it’s gone, of course it is, and his mind reels after it for a few more seconds in vain. The gnawing uneasiness remains, firmly entrenched in the back of his mind.

Dimly lit surroundings unveil itself, shapes comes into focus, dawning on Mairon in all its dreary vividness. The solidity of his own chambers in Dol Guldur presents itself before his disoriented glance.

***

The last night they were together he had a nightmare too. Melkor comforted him then. Charred hand reached out to stroke Mairon’s shoulder-blade. Gentle and reassuring. As if He knew the future. Traced along the fresh welt extending to the small of Mairon’s back. He dipped the sharp edge of His nail into it and Mairon inhaled through gritted teeth.

All the innumerous years they shared, all the moments they had together condensed, crammed into one singularity. A second, just one second, stretched taut, infinite in its intensity and meaning. Strike and caress, a gift and a curse, reward and punishment in one small simple touch. He sensed all of it in this one contact. After the horror of the dream the slight agony of this sting, the reality of this touch carried a blessing within.

And then Master offered him His hand, scarred palm up on the dark sheets. Mairon placed his own hand onto Master’s palm. It felt so right.

Memories were caught in a whirl of a kaleidoscope. In his head, in his heart they gleamed, those memories, like a rapidly rotating star, emitting familiar comfort and thrill in a great time lapse. He wanted to carry this star within him forever, so that he would not get lost if all other flames failed. He wanted to carry this heavy singularity, this star of darkness… So that he’d save his sanity and wouldn’t come apart when the most important time comes. The most important final move…

***

Mairon gets up from bed, craving a bath. His body feels dirty, constricting, but he can’t cast it away now.

Everything once was so easy, so phenomenal, astonishing. Now the world is just a burden – a cage, contracting from all corners, narrowing down. Without Master the world became one infinitely heavy shackle.

His skin itches. He wants it _off_.

He remembers: far away from here, long ago in the past, he, a brilliant youth, used to swim in boiling geothermal pools surrounded by natural fountains, deadly geysers, mud lakes and fumaroles. And he wore his body, for it was strong enough to endure it.

***

The steaming water shot up high in the air with a sound that reminded Mairon of Music. He looked up and shielded his eyes. So suddenly exposed to freezing cold, the water evaporated and created a cloud of snow. Floating, it blocked the skylight. The earth was covered in melting snow. A pungent smell of sulfur and acids. Soft ethereal illumination. He marveled not only at the stunning view of an erupting geyser, but at its touch too. Enjoyed the ferocity of this water’s torrid caress which could sear mortals’ skin and flesh in an instant. It was foggy and the sun smeared itself across the firmament. Mairon was the brightest creature in the world and he was smiling. He was beside his generous Master who was embracing him, kissing him, possessing him over and over and over again…


End file.
